a foreign policy analyst i spoke to earlier, asking if syria wanted to influence. >> israel will claim it does not want to intervene, that this was an action against militants, but if you look at israel's real strategy, if you put yourself in the shoes of the prime minister's national security advisers and you wanted to buttress the regime of the dictator assad because you prefer that to a democracy, the one action you would take would be an attack on the regime. it seems counterintuitive, but it is not. this lends legitimacy to bashar al-assad. from israel's perspective this seems likely. >> is it likely israel consulted washington before it attacked? >> my understanding is israel did not inform washington it was going to do this. the united states check the box and said, we support israel's right to defend itself. this was not israel defending itself. this was a pre-emptive action, and i just have to believe people in washington are quite disturbed by it. it came during hagel hearings and was politically calibrated to get the support of the u.s. senate. what can a president say? he i